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Thread: Best selling cars in Holland show what's in stock for Canada

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    Junior Member RedDevil's Avatar
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    Best selling cars in Holland show what's in stock for Canada

    The February sales numbers of new cars in Holland are in.
    And they are pretty amazing and quite relevant to the introduction of the Micra in Canada.

    It is not the total number. 33,625 new cars were sold over here, a 5.4% rise compared with February 2013.

    It is the 5 best selling models that may surprise you. In order:
    2276 Suzuki Altos. The cheapest and one of the smallest cars on sale. Much smaller than the Micra.
    1866 Kia Picantos. Slightly bigger than the Alto, it is still a lot smaller than the Micra.
    1434 Hyundai I10s. Same platform as the Kia. A good car - we won one in a lottery. But smaller than the Micra.
    1289 Volkswagen Golfs. The new Golf gives Volkswagen a sales boost. Bigger than the Micra, and over twice as expensive.
    1113 Volkswagen Up!s. Again a car that is noticeably smaller than the Micra.

    Not listed but selling in reasonable volumes are the Citroën C1, Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo triplets, Renault Twingo, Dacia Sandero and the Seat Mii/Skoda Citigo Up! clones.

    All these cars, with the exception of the Golf, are subcompacts fighting for the bottom end of the price range. Together the subcompacts make up for more than half of all the car sales. And all of them, maybe except the Dacia, are considerably smaller than the Micra!

    Now the Micra enters the Canadian market with no competition whatsoever in price range.
    If the Canadian market would respond in the same way as ours it would outsell all other cars combined...!

    It won't because the markets are different, and the tax regime is incomparably different, and a car this cheap and small falls outside the average Canadian's buying radar range. (I'm assuming this )

    Still, I wonder what will happen. Will it boom, or not? Either way, it is a miracle.


    Last edited by RedDevil; 03-03-2014 at 06:11 PM.

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    Administrator MetroMPG's Avatar
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    If I understand it, vehicle taxes in the Netherlands are based on weight (is that right?), and also favour plug-in hybrids. Thus the overwhelming success of small cars and advanced technology cars. (I think Holland had the highest sales in the world of the Mitsubishi plug-in SUV... forget the name.)

    Mitsu Canada has very high hopes for the Micra in Canada -- they're saying 10k per year. Whereas the Micra's direct competitors -- Mitsu Mirage and Chevy Spark -- only sell around 150-200 a month each or 1800-2400 a year. Nissan must plan to market this car very aggressively, and price the different options/packages aggressively too. It'll be interesting to see what they do.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S manual: 5.0 L/100 km ... 56.5 mpg (Imp) ... 20.0 km/L ... 47.0 mpg (US) ...


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    Junior Member RedDevil's Avatar
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    Yes, tax is based on a combination of weight and CO² output. Cars with very low CO² emissions are free from annual road tax and luxury purchase tax.
    Hybrids get a 125 kg weight subtraction from their rated weight to calculate their tax level. Bummer, cause it was completely tax free for the last 5 years. They wanna help saving the environment by the inch rather than the foot, apparently.

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    Administrator Daox's Avatar
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    On average, would you say people look down on small cars or love them? Here, small cars seem to be jokes to a lot of people. However, younger buyers seem to like them versus larger vehicles.

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    Junior Member RedDevil's Avatar
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    There will always people who look down on small cars, but in general they get more and more appraisal.

    The biggest reason for that are the cars themselves. The built quality, space, luxury, safety and handling of modern small cars is so much better than it used to be.
    My wife's I10 has more passenger space than my Insight, and many other 'big' cars. The trunk space is tiny, but bigger than my old '85 Civic had.
    Even the cheapest cars available now are at least a lot heavier than that Civic, and a lot safer.

    If the current Micra were on sale like it is some 30 or 40 years ago, then nobody would have judged it small. At least not here.
    Compared to the little Fiats and Minis it is gigantic. But even the average Joe's cars of the day; the Beetles, 2CVs, Kadetts, Renault 4s, etc. were smaller.
    And the Micra is more powerful than a whole bunch of them together.

    50 years ago the biggest cars on sale (American V8's) were over twice as long as the smallest cars.
    But now the small cars are 25% bigger and the big cars have shrunk.
    If this trend continues they will pass each other by the turn of the next century


    Last edited by RedDevil; 03-04-2014 at 10:46 AM.

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